Academician Ren Enze talks about alternative energy sources: What kind of alternative oil do we use?

The use of straw fermentation to purify natural gas biofuels for cars. CFP

CFP

What are the biomass fuels currently produced and used in the world? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What are the prospects for the development of biomass fuel in China? A few days ago, the reporter interviewed the academicians of the two academies and Senior Advisor of the Research Institute of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering Yan Enze.

Global Petroleum & Chemical giant Exxon Mobil recently announced in its Global Energy Outlook 2012 report that due to economic growth and demographic factors, global energy demand will be 30% higher than in 2010 by 2040. On March 20 this year, the domestic refined oil price was raised again. The number 93 gasoline was raised from 7.85 yuan per litre to 8.33 yuan per litre. This is since April 2010, the domestic oil price increase rate has reached a record high.

The energy crisis has touched everyone's nerves, and has also aroused people's strong desire to find alternative energy sources.

A lot of things can be used as an alternative to gasoline. Academician Enze, the current research and application of several biomass fuels mainly include straw ethanol gasoline, sugar beet biomass gasoline, cellulosic biomass gasoline, biodiesel, and second-generation biodiesel. Microalgae, biodiesel, etc., many things can replace gasoline, and China has a very promising prospect for the development of biomass fuels.

Straw ethanol gas containing 10% ethanol has been widely used in China. Compared with traditional gasoline, it has obvious advantages. For example, the octane number is increased, the oxygen content is greater, and the combustion is more efficient. It can reduce the emission of carbon monoxide in automobile exhaust by more than 35% and the emission of hydrocarbons by more than 15%. Biomass growth process can also absorb carbon dioxide. At present, China has built a plant with a production capacity of over 200,000 tons/year and using non-food crop cassava as raw material. In foreign countries, the U.S. Department of Energy invests 1 billion U.S. dollars to develop straw ethanol technology. It is planned that by 2030, the supply of straw ethanol will reach 30% of the total amount of gasoline in the United States, which will be approximately 190 million cubic meters, and the production cost will also be lower than that of petroleum gasoline. Professor Ren Enze said that we must base ourselves on our cooperation with foreign countries to achieve industrialization first, and then expand the scale to more than 100,000 tons/year. For large-scale development, enzyme preparations are the basis and raw materials are the key. To investigate and understand the domestic supply of raw materials, we must develop enzyme preparations with their own characteristics.

Beet-based biomass gasoline - the latest generation of biomass gasoline for cars, is more energy-efficient than ethanol-gasoline and more economical to use; there is no need to upgrade sales systems and gas stations; there is no need to adjust the engine. Foreign countries began to build industrial production facilities in 2010. The production process includes raw material pretreatment, aqueous phase reforming, base catalyzed polymerization, and hydrodeoxygenation.

At the same time, foreign countries are also vigorously studying biomass gasoline using cellulose as a raw material. Cellulose is more widely sourced and cheaper than beets and other raw materials. Using cellulose as raw material, China is more likely to form technology with independent intellectual property rights. The domestic research and development of cellulose-derived biogenic gasoline has been carried out and certain progress has been made. Should focus on breakthroughs and occupy this high-tech development frontier commanding heights.

The biodiesel can be introduced by Prof. Enze, and biodiesel is a rising industry in the 21st century. The world's biodiesel production capacity has been over 30 million tons/year. At present, the production capacity in the United States has grown to 10.93 million tons/year and the EU to 13 million tons/year. Internationally, there have been well-established biodiesel standards.

The total capacity of biodiesel in China is about 1.5 million tons/year, and the output in recent years is 300,000 to 500,000 tons/year. Most of them use waste oil as raw material. CNOOC built a 60,000-ton-per-year biodiesel plant in Hainan's East, using Sinopec's SRCA process to achieve cleaner production and has been sold at a gas station in Hainan.

Professor Yan Enze said that Sinopec has a basis for developing the biodiesel industry. Sinopec has a complete biodiesel medium-sized pilot plant from small to 2,000 tons/year; it has experience in biodiesel quality analysis, simulation assessment, bench test equipment, and vehicle testing; and it has a world-class biodiesel package that processes waste oil feedstock. Technology, and alkali-catalyzed distillation processes for treating woody vegetable oils and microalgae oil feedstocks. In addition, Sinopec Corp. applied to the Ministry of Science and Technology for a major support project for the national "12th Five-Year Plan" for biodiesel. The Sinopec Consulting Company is entrusted by the National Energy Administration and is preparing guidelines for the development of China's biodiesel industry. These have provided strong support for Sinopec to develop biodiesel.

Hope microalgae "point green into gold"

Microalgae is the simplest creature on earth. Microalgae biodiesel can reduce carbon dioxide emissions, reduce greenhouse effect, reduce dependence on petroleum, and can also treat waste gas and wastewater to protect the environment. Microalgae biodiesel technology has been hailed as the "one stone, three birds" technology. All governments have strongly supported research and development. For example, the United States has developed a microalgal biodiesel roadmap. ExxonMobil invested $600 million in microalgae biodiesel in 2009. People have eager expectations for this technology.

Microalgae is the original plant with the highest photosynthetic efficiency and is the fastest growing plant in nature. It produces several dozen times more than the crop per unit area. Microalgae can grow in high-salt, high-alkali water, and can be cultivated in mudflats, saline-alkali lands, deserts and seawater, saline-alkali waters, and industrial wastewater. Microalgae stem cells contain up to 70% oil and are the most promising oil-producing organisms; microalgae cultivation uses carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust gases to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also absorb nitrogen oxides from industrial exhaust gases, reducing environmental impacts. Pollution; production of microalgae biodiesel, but also the production of algal cakes, processed into protein, polysaccharides, fatty acids and other high-value products, reduce the cost of microalgae biodiesel.

Academician Yan Enze stated that the development of microalgae biodiesel requires only three sources of carbon dioxide, sunlight, and land. However, there is still a long way to go before large-scale industrial production. Its production is a complex system engineering involving multiple disciplines, multiple professions, and huge investments. At present, large-scale complete sets of technologies are lacking, large-scale production has not yet been realized, and the production cost is much higher than that of petroleum diesel. The task facing people is to make major breakthroughs in the collection, concentration, wall breaking, and oil extraction of microalgae, while simplifying processes and reducing equipment investment and production costs. The cultivation of microalgae is the basis of the development of microalgae biodiesel. To use genetic engineering, it is difficult to break through the oil content and the production speed. (Reporter Wang Xiaorun)